I want to share the beautiful job she did on my grandson’s birthday cake that same year: She bought a basic white cake with white buttercream, then added vanilla wafer crumb sand and colored blue Cool-Whip waves. She molded that shark from fondant herself, and beached it on the cake!

My daughter also embedded red gummy sharks in blue Jello and added Cool-Whip waves. I was able to give her a couple of tips because of something I tried with my students. I poured warm blue Jello over gummy fish, using only one orange one (for finding Nemo!) When the Jello set up, the gummies rose, belly-up, to the top; they took on a rubbery texture, and their color bled into the “water!” I covered the whole dish with whip cream waves, and it was edible (hungry eighth graders will eat just about anything!) Unless you want your creation to look like a toxic waste dump, let Jello set, and then push in any gummies you choose to use! Serve them soon, before they “bleed out!”

I’ve got quite a lot of catching up to do since my blog was hacked about a year ago. I hadn’t posted much for almost a year before that when I started taking care of my mother. I had mentioned some soaps that I had made as favors for my grandson’s third birthday party. Here are some photos:

I bought a “TOOB” of toy sharks and placed them individually in some molds I already had. Then I melted some cubes (4/bar) of clear melt and pour soap in a Pyrex mixing cup in the microwave. I added a drop or two of blue soap coloring, but no fragrance, as some little kids are sensitive.

I didn’t use the usual alcohol spritz to get rid of bubbles, either. I thought the waters should be foamy, so I gave the melted soap an extra stir before I poured it. I filled the molds, leaving dorsal fins and sometimes tails exposed. I confess to making a lot of “dun uh, dun uh” Jaws music noises while I was working! I left the soaps to harden on their own. (You can refrigerate them to speed up hardening, but when they come out of the fridge, water will condense on them, making them wet and slimy. You have to wait for them to dry, so you might as well wait for them to harden at room temperature. I made these in my kitchen, but I have a “soap station” in the basement where I usually work. The cool air down there is perfect for soaping and there’s a dehumidifier that keeps the soaps from “sweating.”)

My husband packaged the soaps for me in clear cellophane bags, and my daughter added them to favor bags for the children. (I’ll see if she has a photo of the favor table.) One father sent my son-in-law a message that the soap was a big hit with his son, and had to be used in the bath that very night!